IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ajecsc/v69y2010i4p1279-1293.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Ricardo, Gold, and Rails: Discovering the Origins of Progress and Poverty

Author

Listed:
  • Richard W. England

Abstract

Henry George's Progress and Poverty was one of the most widely read books of the 19th century. It is important to acknowledge the influence of classical writers such as Smith and Ricardo on George's thought. However, the content of George's most popular work cannot be fully appreciated unless one takes account of the historical period and social context within which its author came to maturity: Philadelphia and California before 1879 are part of the story of Progress and Poverty (1979).

Suggested Citation

  • Richard W. England, 2010. "Ricardo, Gold, and Rails: Discovering the Origins of Progress and Poverty," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 69(4), pages 1279-1293, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:ajecsc:v:69:y:2010:i:4:p:1279-1293
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1536-7150.2010.00744.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1536-7150.2010.00744.x
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1536-7150.2010.00744.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Williamson Jeffrey G., 1995. "The Evolution of Global Labor Markets since 1830: Background Evidence and Hypotheses," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 141-196, April.
    2. Unknown, 2005. "Forward," 2005 Conference: Slovenia in the EU - Challenges for Agriculture, Food Science and Rural Affairs, November 10-11, 2005, Moravske Toplice, Slovenia 183804, Slovenian Association of Agricultural Economists (DAES).
    3. Clay, Karen & Wright, Gavin, 2005. "Order without law? Property rights during the California gold rush," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 155-183, April.
    4. Mark Blaug, 2000. "Henry George: rebel with a cause," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(2), pages 270-288.
    5. Matthew Gentzkow & Edward L. Glaeser & Claudia Goldin, 2006. "The Rise of the Fourth Estate. How Newspapers Became Informative and Why It Mattered," NBER Chapters, in: Corruption and Reform: Lessons from America's Economic History, pages 187-230, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Zerbe, Richard O. & Anderson, C. Leigh, 2001. "Culture And Fairness In The Development Of Institutions In The California Gold Fields," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 61(1), pages 114-143, March.
    7. Vernon, J. R., 1994. "Unemployment rates in postbellum America: 1869-1899," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 701-714.
    8. Nonnenmacher, Tomas, 2001. "State Promotion And Regulation Of The Telegraph Industry, 1845–1860," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 61(1), pages 19-36, March.
    9. Filippo Cesarano, 2006. "Economic history and economic theory," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(4), pages 447-467.
    10. Walker, Thomas R., 2000. "Economic Opportunity on the Urban Frontier: Wealth and Nativity in Early San Francisco," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 258-277, July.
    11. Calomiris, Charles W. & Schweikart, Larry, 1991. "The Panic of 1857: Origins, Transmission, and Containment," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 51(4), pages 807-834, December.
    12. Clay, Karen B., 1999. "Property Rights and Institutions: Congress and the California Land Act 1851," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 59(1), pages 122-142, March.
    13. Odell, Kerry A., 1989. "The Integration of Regional and Interregional Capital Markets: Evidence from the Pacific Coast, 1883–1913," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(2), pages 297-310, June.
    14. Umbeck, John, 1977. "The California gold rush: A study of emerging property rights," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 197-226, July.
    15. Kanazawa, Mark, 2005. "Immigration, Exclusion, and Taxation: Anti-Chinese Legislation in Gold Rush California," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 65(3), pages 779-805, September.
    16. Rhode, Paul W., 1995. "Learning, Capital Accumulation, and the Transformation of California Agriculture," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 55(4), pages 773-800, December.
    17. Craig, Lee A & Palmquist, Raymond B & Weiss, Thomas, 1998. "Transportation Improvements and Land Values in the Antebellum United States: A Hedonic Approach," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 173-189, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stewart, James I., 2009. "Cooperation when N is large: Evidence from the mining camps of the American West," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 213-225, March.
    2. Rodriguez, Mauricio & Smulders, Sjak, 2022. "Dynamic resource management under weak property rights: A tale of thieves and trespassers," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    3. Clay, Karen & Wright, Gavin, 2005. "Order without law? Property rights during the California gold rush," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 155-183, April.
    4. Mathieu Couttenier & Pauline Grosjean & Marc Sangnier, 2017. "The Wild West IS Wild: The Homicide Resource Curse," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 558-585.
    5. Harris,Colin & Cai,Meina & Murtazashvili,Ilia & Murtazashvili,Jennifer Brick, 2020. "The Origins and Consequences of Property Rights," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781108969055, September.
    6. Bart J. Wilson & Taylor Jaworski & Karl E. Schurter & Andrew Smyth, 2012. "The Ecological and Civil Mainsprings of Property: An Experimental Economic History of Whalers' Rules of Capture," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 28(4), pages 617-656, October.
    7. Hugh-Jones, David & Perroni, Carlo, 2017. "The logic of costly punishment reversed: Expropriation of free-riders and outsiders," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 112-130.
    8. Margo, Robert A., 1999. "Regional Wage Gaps and the Settlement of the Midwest," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 128-143, April.
    9. John Boyce & David Bruner, 2012. "Property rights out of anarchy? The Demsetz hypothesis in a game of conflict," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 13(2), pages 95-120, June.
    10. Roderick Duncan, 2009. "The Evolution of Resource Property Rights ‐ By Anthony Scott," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 85(269), pages 226-228, June.
    11. Kanazawa, Mark, 2006. "Investment in private water development: Property rights and contractual opportunism during the California Gold Rush," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 357-381, April.
    12. Hellwagner, Timon & Weber, Enzo, 2021. "Labour Market Adjustments to Population Decline," VfS Annual Conference 2021 (Virtual Conference): Climate Economics 242455, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    13. Libecap, Gary D., 2007. "The Assignment of Property Rights on the Western Frontier: Lessons for Contemporary Environmental and Resource Policy," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 67(2), pages 257-291, June.
    14. Robert A. Margo, 1998. "Labor Market Integration Before the Civil War," NBER Working Papers 6643, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Bryan Leonard & Gary D. Libecap, 2016. "Collective Action by Contract: Prior Appropriation and the Development of Irrigation in the Western United States," NBER Working Papers 22185, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Lawrence Lai & Frank Lorne, 2014. "Ambiguous Property Rights: A Taxonomic and Exploratory Account of Post-colonial Rural Housing in Chinese Hong Kong," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(10), pages 2052-2067, August.
    17. Ilia Murtazashvili & Jennifer Murtazashvili, 2019. "The political economy of legal titling," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 32(3), pages 251-268, September.
    18. Rodriguez Acosta, Mauricio, 2016. "Essays in political economy and resource economic : A macroeconomic approach," Other publications TiSEM 1e39ef1b-43a2-4f95-892c-6, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    19. Geenen, Sara, 2012. "A dangerous bet: The challenges of formalizing artisanal mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 322-330.
    20. Leeson, Peter T., 2005. "Endogenizing fractionalization," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(1), pages 75-98, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ajecsc:v:69:y:2010:i:4:p:1279-1293. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0002-9246 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.